Antioch Police Arrest Man in 1980 Murder of Teenage Girl

Antioch police on Monday made an arrest in the 1980 abduction, rape and killing of a teenage girl, the department said. Jean Elle reports. (Published Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2017)

A convicted rapist was arrested Monday in the 1980 abduction, rape and killing of a teenage girl, Antioch police said.

The killing had been the oldest open cold case homicide on record in the East Bay city.

At about 5 p.m., Mitchell Lynn Bacom, 63, was taken into custody in the June 1980 murder of 14-year-old Suzanne Bombardier, who had been taken in the middle of the night from her sister's home in Antioch, police said. She had been missing for five days before her body was found in the San Joaquin River, near the Antioch Bridge.

The cause of death was determined to be one stab wound to the chest that penetrated her heart, police said. Evidence at the time indicated she had been sexually assaulted.

Bacom was identified as the suspect through DNA testing, police said. He is being held on charges of murder, kidnapping, rape and oral copulation.

Since Suzanne's death, Bacom has been convicted twice on sex-related crimes and other felonies: in Iselton in 1981 and in Contra Costa County in 2002. Before Suzanne's death, he had been convicted of rape and other felonies in Mountain View in 1974.